We have been camping with our dogs for close to 7 years now and I will never sway from my love for the toy hauler. With kids still at home, we are not ready to make the fifth-wheel plunge just yet so I see several more years of our travel trailer toy hauler in our future. With that being said, there are things we love and things we hate about our current unit.

It’s not a very homey trailer, feeling more like a garage on wheels. Weather in Florida is not very predictable and there are weekend that we are left being in the camper more than outside, enjoying the campground. The furniture in the camper is not all that comfortable! Also, the design of our Coachman Adrenaline Surge is perfect for outdoor toy hauling and storage. It is completely self sustainable, with a generator and tanks large enough to be stranded for a week! We have no toys, we have Chihuahuas! So our “Chihuahua Hauler” not only makes for perfect camping with dogs weekends, but also a perfect home-away-from-home for show weekends.

Factory stocked, it can sleep 8 with the two back bunks lowered and the jack-knife couches extended. But then, you cannot really move around the camper. Once those bunks are lowered, you loose access to the large back area of the camper – Which is where we house puppies when we have them in tow. And the jack-knives? Don’t even get me started! It’s great that they fold up and store against the wall, but their lack of comfort aside, they also started to cave in and fall apart after a couple of years.

Ideally, we would like to get the camper setup so that we can finally take the plunge and start staying on-site at the shows. When four-day shows are on the calendar, being ale to stay at the show site would be ideal. Especially with the weeklong circuits in Brooksville and Ocala. To make our already dog friendly toy hauler more comfortable for show site stay, renovations were a must!

Sooooooo, after much research and planning, we decided to remodel and “Newtonize” the Chihuahua Hauler this year. After our last camping trip back in November, we emptied the camper out completely and the plan was to work on it over the winter, while the temperatures were cool. The trailer has been empty since the holidays and I hoped to start this week. Well, I guess the mere mention of me starting the process inspired my dear husband to miss camping and he shared his SURPRISE camping trip he planned in three weeks. YES! THREE WEEKS! So, I need to get a real move on and complete three months worth of planned work in three weeks!

For reference – yours and ours – here are the photos of the camper pre-demo. Note the rusty table poles and moldy jack-knife couches? That’s gotta go! We need to make things more dog and humid Florida friendly. Also, Coachman’s lack of color matching skills has always gotten under my skin – Oak cabinets, beige walls, grey and beige marble counters and black pleather with red and yellow upholstery? YUCK!

Wish me luck! Off to start removing hardware and furniture!

 

 

 

Very Slow Progress